Breivik, Zimmerman: Birds of a Feather

By Cole

It’s an unfortunate bit of timing for Florida gunman George Zimmerman that Norway’s most infamous mass-murderer, Anders Breivik, is on trial now. Breivik is claiming he killed 77 people in “self-defense.”

Scandinavians on the whole tend to be more open to abstract notions like mental illness — and other concepts that involve tolerance for human frailty — like healthcare for everyone, helping the poor, accepting homosexuals, and not letting every nut own a gun.

So after they’ve given Breivik the opportunity to deliver his unapologetic, long-winded rant about his reasons, which he hopes will prove that he’s not crazy, the Norwegian court may rule that anyone who arms himself to pursue strangers going about their business who have never harmed him or anyone he knows, and mows them down on the mere chance that they someday might harm him, is indeed crazy.

Breivik apparently thinks he was protecting Norway from a Muslim invasion, justifying his killing on such a grand scale.

Zimmerman thinks he was protecting only his gated community, so he killed just one teenager — Trayvon Martin.

But the rationale behind both men’s behavior was EXACTLY the same.

Given the U.S.’s lack of gun control, under the right circumstances and delusions of peril, could any Zimmerman type go “Breivik”?

I say yes.

If Zimmerman isn’t found guilty of 2nd-degree murder, at the very least he should be deemed insane for thinking he needed a gun at the grocery store — his original destination.

To all you shooting enthusiasts out there (Cheney and NRA members, I’m looking at you), you might want to get a better grip on the difference between “defense” and “offense” before you point your ill-gotten, yet constitutionally-protected, weapons at your next victims.